In other words, “a government of the people for the people and by the people” was not within their purview. When the Declaration was signed and issued to the country as a platform for a new nation, it can hardly be doubted that its doctrines were believed by its authors, and by those who accepted it, to be applicable to every people and to all times,――notwithstanding the recognized fact that unfortunate conditions here regarding African slavery revealed an apparent inconsistency. How far the words of the Declaration applied to negro slaves will always be disputed, but that Jefferson intended no exception is to be gathered from his oft-quoted expressions, and from the fact that in the original draft the British Government were severely condemned for establishing slavery here and not repressing the slave trade. The historian Bancroft expressed in his history the Jeffersonian view, saying, “The heart of Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for all mankind and all coming generations, without any exception whatever, for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident.” It should be added that at that time, North and South, it was the opinion that slavery would soon disappear, and it was only unforeseen inventions which changed the situation. But taking whatever view we please of the intention of the makers in this regard, there can be no question that the Declaration announced important and high ideals for the future. Jefferson emphasized this when he said, “It is indeed an animating thought that while we are securing the rights of ourselves and our posterity we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish like us to emerge from their tyrannies also,” and again, “Every man and every body of men on earth possesses the right of self government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature.” And so Charles Sumner later said, “The words that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed are sacred words, full of life-giving energy. Not simply national independence was here proclaimed, but also the primal rights of all mankind.” Abraham Lincoln said, “In these early days the Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all;” and again, “If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book in which we find it and tear it out.” These statements have been echoed and re-echoed by all our great statesmen, from Washington and Adams and Jefferson to Webster, Sumner, and Lincoln; they have even been asserted more than once in political platforms of great parties, and wherever the voice of dissent was feebly raised and doubters found, it was until recent times invariably among the apologists for slavery, or among those who feared interference with it, never by the men whom we of the present day look upon as leaders, or whose interpretation we would ever